In the Sweet By-and-By

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Mr. Webster, like many musicians, was of an exceedingly nervous and sensitive nature, and subject to periods of depression, in which he looked upon the dark side of all things in life. I had learned his peculiarities so well that on meeting him I could tell at a glance if he was melancholy, and had found that I could rouse him up by giving him a new song to work on.

He came into my place of business [in Elkhorn, Wisconsin], walked down to the stove, and turned his back on me without speaking. I was at my desk. Turning to him, I said, “Webster, what is the matter now?” “It’s no matter,” he replied, “it will be all right by and by.” The idea of the hymn came me like a flash of sunlight, and I replied, “The Sweet By and By! Why would not that make a good hymn?” “Maybe it would,” he said indifferently. Turning to my desk I penned the words of the hymn as fast as I could write. I handed the words to Webster. As he read his eyes kindled, and stepping to the desk he began writing the notes. Taking his violin, he played the melody and then jotted down the notes of the chorus. It was not over thirty minutes from the time I took my pen to write the words before two friends with Webster and myself were singing the hymn.—Sanford Fillmore Bennett (1836-1898)[2]

The hymn, immensely popular in the nineteenth century, became a Gospel standard and has appeared in hymnals ever since. In the New Orleansjazz tradition 'Sweet By-and-By' is a standard dirge played in so-called "jazz funerals". The American composer Charles Ives quoted the hymn in several works, most notably in the finale of his Orchestral Set No. 2, written between 1915 and 1919. Translations of the text exist in a number of world languages.

The 1907 Spanish Latter-day Saint hymnal contained a similar song, set to the same tune and titled "Hay un Mundo Feliz Más Allá", that was copied with permission from the American Tract Society's Himnos evangélicos.[3][4] During the era of the Mexican Revolution, Andrés C. Gonzalez, an early LDS missionary in Mexico, sang "Hay un mundo feliz más allá" in public and was arrested for "stealing" the Protestants' song.[5] While incarcerated, he rewrote the lyrics, which appeased the police.[5] This revised version appears in place of the original in every Spanish LDS hymnal from 1912 on.[6][7] It was titled "Despedida" until the 1992 hymnal, which changed the title to match the first line of the song, "Placentero nos es trabajar".[6][8]

During the American Civil War, veterans sang a song devoted to "The Army Bean" which used a tune derivative of "The Sweet By-and-By".

Mark Twain spoofed the ubiquitous popularity of the song in chapter 17 ("A Banquet"), of his satiric 1889 novel, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. The protagonist, Hank Morgan, a visitor from the future, attends a lavish court dinner given by Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur's sister, during which guests are regaled with music:

In a gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps, and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of the wail known to later centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little more. For some reason or other the queen had the composer hanged, after dinner.